


Making Meaning

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22554259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So, one thing I noticed about Bunny was that when he was talking to North near the beginning of the movie, his ears were down, until North said something rude about Easter. His ears went up at that.Actually, in the case of rabbits, their ears go down when they’re happy/content, and are only up when they’re startled/scared.Obviously, Bunny’s pretty content around North. Would like some one-sidedness from Bunny, since none of the Guardians know what his ear quirks mean."What Bunny keeps thinking about from the Easter Battle is something he wishes didn’t feel so important.
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Nicholas St. North
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20
Collections: Eggnog Short Fics





	Making Meaning

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 6/28/2014.

It was a stupid thing to think about, and Bunny knew it. Of all the things about the Easter Battle to linger on, this must be the most irrelevant, the most meaningless—  
  
He sighed and shook his head. Maybe meaningless wasn’t the best way to describe it. But all the meaning had only come from him. For everyone else—well, there hadn’t been too many options for retreat after Pitch’s shadows had pretended to scratch his ears. He might as well have escaped to Tooth’s hands as North’s. At least, that’s what he was sure everyone, including North, of course including North, thought.  
  
He crouched down by some newly-budding paint flowers. They looked as healthy as anything in his Warren had ever looked, but when he examined the buds, he noted that they were going to eventually release paint far redder than any pink he usually used. A red almost like that of holly berries. He shook his head and murmured a few words of encouragement to the flowers. It wasn’t their fault they were coming up strange.   
  
It wasn’t their fault that he wouldn’t have wanted to retreat to anyone’s arms except North’s. It wasn’t their fault that he kept thinking about what it would like to be held protectively by North as he was now.  
  
“Come off it, Bunny,” he muttered to himself. He was a warrior. He didn’t need protecting.  
  
And North understood that, and would still try to cover his back and protect him as much as possible.   
  
Because that’s how you treated a comrade-in-arms. Nothing more.  
  
Bunny scowled as he checked the banks of the dye river. It should have been some small comfort, at least, that no one knew what he felt about North, and that no one was likely to guess. None of the other Guardians paid enough attention to his non-human mannerisms, so they couldn’t realize just now _comfortable_ he felt around North, though his ears showed it plain as day.  
  
And even when they argued—well, they really only argued about one thing, and it was kind of nice to know that they’d always have one thing to fight about, one thing that, well, if they were lovers, would obviously not be that serious.  
  
Lovers. Would North laugh at him, if he confessed? Maybe. He’d tried to hide his feelings for so long, North would certainly be justified in thinking that Bunny was trying to play some sort of strange prank. That might be the better outcome than the alternative, though, North taking him seriously and saying solemnly, “I am sorry, Bunny, but I do not think of you that way.” The casual touches would cease, then, of course, the touches that made him freeze not because he felt threatened, but because he wanted them to mean something to North, wanted them to mean the same thing to both of them.  
  
If North laughed, Bunny could laugh too.  
  
“And what about the third possibility, yeah?” Bunny said. What about North saying that he felt the same way, what about North embracing him, what about North’s clever hands undoing his wrist guards, what about learning what North’s strength and size was like outside the battlefield?  
  
Bunny shivered pleasantly. He wanted North, alien as he was—alien as he was.  
  
Want. And he only wanted North more each day.  
  
“Perfect,” he said with a frown. If this kept up, by Christmas he wouldn’t have to say a thing to North. He’d know exactly how much Bunny would like him to have personal knowledge of when he was sleeping or awake.  
  
“Right,” Bunny said to the dye river, the paint flowers, and the whole vast green world of the Warren. “That’d be a disaster. And I’m not going to wait six months for it. Now, where’s that bloody elf? Need some excuse to go to the Pole…”


End file.
